Best way to start the *very* beginning of college search?

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi,
My son is a sophmore this year and we’re thinking about the best way to start the very beginning of the college search process.</p>

<p>My friends have given their kids Barron’s Guide to Colleges but I somehow think that looking through a four-inch thick book filled with stats might not be the best start (overwhelming plus sterile).</p>

<p>My son has a good math/science aptitude (perfect math PSAT, winner of a few science fairs) but has not been putting out much effort in his math/science classes of late and now plays a lot of guitar & thinks about being a ‘poet’ (sigh).</p>

<p>So I don’t know that current interest would translate to reasonable major (no life-long love of writing to support Eng. major, e.g.).</p>

<p>Of course we’ll support whatever direction he wants…just not sure where to start (other than geographic locale…not even sure of that) particularly if his interests and direction are not well established.</p>

<p>Just thinking of taking him to a few local schools (we’re chock full of ivies and pretty prestigious lac in our area) and have him get a “feel”? But should a school decision be based on “feel”? </p>

<p>I know this is long question and not focused…would appreciate any insights whatsoever; general or specific. Thanks so much!!</p>

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<p>Some of us believe in “feel” or “fit” being important (I’m one who does). Some don’t. It may depend on the personality of the student. Since you live near some great colleges, now is not too early to start some visits. It could be very motivating to your son–it was to mine (he also likes to write poetry). </p>

<p>I got the Fiske and Insider’s guides and Colleges That Change Lives and flagged colleges that sounded like a good fit (with post-it notes) for my son to read. The ones that sounded best to him (20–7 of which could be considered “safe” for him to be admitted) we visited. He narrowed the list to 10 (2 “safe” ones) to apply to. Those 2 had Early Action so he’s already admitted to them with good scholarships. The others we have to wait for news.</p>

<p>Because son wanted small LAC with discussion-based classes, that narrowed the field. He also wanted some distance from home. He doesn’t have a major in mind, so I looked for descriptors in the guidebooks that described my son-- or didn’t. In his case, words like intellectual, unconventional, dorky were some “yes” terms. Greek or sports emphasis were big “no words”.</p>

<p>We gave each school a full day for a visit and took good notes so they didn’t get all mixed up in our minds. We made them into really fun family vacations, going to museums, visiting friends, etc. We’ve had a lot of fun with it and are now in the hard part–the waiting. Enjoy the process–there are wonderful schools out there for everyone who wants to go.</p>

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<p>We started with a college fair in my DS’s sophmore year. It was held toward the end of the school year. I think they’re held in a lot of big cities and smaller ones too. Lots of colleges were represented from both coasts and everywhere in between. Pictures, videos, brochures and free pencils as well as college reps to ask questions of(in my son’s sophmore year, I did more of the asking, he just grabbed brochures & free pencils) and if I remember right they also had some lectures on things like finaid and how to choose a college but we didn’t attend any of the lectures. My son actually found his dream school at the very first college fair we went to and he’s there now as a college freshman. For him, it was love at first sight and he never got excited about any other college. (though he did apply to others).</p>

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<p>I’d wait a year for most of the college visits stuff, though collegeboard and other sites have lists of what to do for each year.
I’d rather see a kid broaden their interests and skills at this point, and maybe discover that there are a zillion other poetical, guitar playing math kids.
meeting others that like science and math, spending some time applying math - making robots, NASA summer, astronomy in NM, science at one of the National Institutes for health, UPenn etc. gives him a stronger sense of who he is and what choices he has open to him.
Where he goes to college should be based on who he is, how he learns best, and what direction he wants to go in life. Spending time with girls and boys who think his math skills are as cool as his guitar playing might be fun, as long as he knows you don’t mind if he wants to be a poet. Not to worry, very few kids continue to think that is good choice once they’ve had a few poetry classes. (g)</p>

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<p>I forgot to say, my favorite book about college admissions is Winning the Heart of the College Admissions Dean. Our library has it, maybe yours does too. I read that before finding CC and it was incredibly helpful. There are lots of other good books too, but if I could only read one, that’s the one I’d pick.</p>

<p>The reason I’m suggesting a bit of early visiting is motivational. Keeping grades up gives your son more options. If he’s seen a few beautiful campuses with students having a great time, maybe he’ll picture himself playing his guitar under one of those trees and decide he’d better get his rear in gear.</p>

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<p>Sign up for College Confidential. :slight_smile: More seriously, my very first step was to be aware of my child’s interests. Next step was to look at National Science Foundation lists of strong colleges in one of his major interest areas. Third step was to visit college representatives at our city’s National College Fair event. Fourth was to attend regional information sessions for various colleges. Somewhere in the next few years we’ll probably desire to find time to visit college campuses, but that is much lower priority.</p>

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<p>Jolynne:</p>

<p>Welcome back. Your son sounds unchallenged; perhaps you and he could discuss ways of keeping him challenged and engaged. It would be a pity if he became an underachiever through finding things too easy for him.</p>

<p>Since you live near universities and LACs, I’d suggest casual visits for him to get a general feel of issues like size and location, bearing in mind that what a 15 year old would find too big might feel just right to a 17 or 18 year old. But that would really be it.</p>

<p>I’d also suggest things along the lines of oldinjersey. If he does take college classes, or attend some math/science summer programs, he would get a feel for the level of challenge and the sense of fun that one can get in college classes and mixing with similarly-inclined kids. </p>

<p>Oh, and he might enjoy reading the libretto of Les Phys, which a Harvard undergraduate concentrator in Physics and music wrote as his senior thesis. It’s performed at least once a year at Harvard.</p>

<p><a href=“http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~georgi/LesPhys.PDF[/url]”>http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~georgi/LesPhys.PDF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>We started visiting colleges between my daughter’s soph and junior year, but only because my daughter was ready and it fit really well into a return from a vacation. On that first trip, I flagged about 10 schools that were right along the path we were driving, she read about them and eliminated several. The main advantage for us was that trip helped define what she was looking for. We saw both large and small schools, rural and urban schools, and it became very clear what she wanted after seeing those six places (we only did tours at 2 of them). Those visits also ended up being a motivating factor, and helped keep her on track junior year.</p>

<p>One of the key factors is whether your kid is ready or not. At some point you need to push, but sophomore year is too soon. </p>

<p>I did do the same for my daughter as Bethie – I suggested schools for her to read about, so she didn’t sit down and read the entire book. I tried to find out why she would nix a place, to better guide my advice.</p>

<p>There’s no one way to find schools. Some kids do it based on their planned major. Some do it based on location. Some kids do it based on sports. (and many seem to do it solely based on prestige.) There are many, many parameters to consider, and only your son will know which ones are most important to him. Money will be important to you – so make sure you don’t recommend schools you can’t afford. I would suggest doing a financial aid calculator now to determine how much you can pay. Don’t visit the Ivies if you discover your EFC is $50,000 but you can’t pay that much.</p>

<p>Oh – and the CC mantra is “love thy safety,” so make sure to visit a range of schools. It’s probably more important to find safety and match schools that your son loves than reaches.</p>

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<p>Looking back, (I have a junior), I wish we had known more about what schools were looking for in terms of schedule rigor, honors/AP classes. Assuming your son’s Jr year schedule isn’t set at this point, he may want to make sure he signs up for classes that will enhance his chances to pursue his interests at the school(s) of his liking.</p>

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<p>We started my d’s college search process from overseas. We did not have access to English libraries, mailing lists, PSATs, etc. We were not in a position to even visit schools. So here is what we did, and it has been successful for us.</p>

<ol>
<li> Visit this site often. :)</li>
<li> Fill out the college finder questionaire on the collegeboard site.
<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools;
Fill it out again, with slightly different criteria. With more detail. With fewer details. We actually did several different sites like this.</li>
<li> Post a thread on here, with as much as you know and are willing to share about your S - scores, interests, kinds of colleges, financial need. Take advantage of the wealth of knowledge on here. Also, take note of suggestions from friends. (Since you do have access to your library, or mailing lists, these will also be nice resources. Be sure to look at “Colleges that Change Lives,” too.)</li>
<li> Open a word document on your computer listing all the colleges suggested to you by these various routes. Bold the ones that seem especially interesting or appropriate to what you’re looking for. D’s initial list had about 85 schools on it.</li>
<li> Start visiting the college websites, and the college profiles on the college board website. Take notes in your word document. Start whittling the list, deleting obvious mis-matches.
At this point, we created a separate page for schools that were meeting D’s various (and sometimes random) criteria. She created a specific form she copied and pasted, to include things like location, majors, ECs that were important to her. I added to it, to include things like financial and scholarship info. Later, we added a “subjective” column - to copy and paste other’s comments and personal experiences (mostly from here!). This important, because when looking at lots of schools, things start running together! It really helps to have a file we can go back to.</li>
<li> Find a couple sample campuses to visit that are nearby. A large one, a small one, etc. This will help your S get a feel for his comfort level, and will help him be able to eliminate schools from his list.</li>
<li> Once you get the 3,000 colleges narrowed down to a couple dozen (maybe by next year?), start requesting info, going to college fairs, visiting campuses, and narrowing the list further.</li>
</ol>

<p>We had to cram a lot of junior year experiences, such as visiting campuses and college fairs, into the first few months of senior year. But ultimately, D decided upon 6 schools that appealed to her, that fit her needs and wishes. Now we are waiting for them to decide about her. (She’s 3 for 3 so far.)</p>

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<p>That’s a particularly good suggestion, which I will put to work in my home. This is something that can be revised over time, as the student grows up and as your family gains new information.</p>

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<p>My D had absolutely no idea what she wanted until I started taking her to a few schools just to get an idea of what’s out there. This was how she determined that she wanted a mid-size school, liberal arts, big on sports, and within an hour from a beach. Until he starts to see a few, he may not really know. I think she is going to end up at College of Charleston or Fairfield as a result.</p>

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<p>These are all terrifice posts! I live west of Philly, so we are near many colleges and universities. One thing my D and I did was to visit some of the colleges in the area at the beginning of Junior year; just to get an idea of what’s out there, what she liked about them, what she didn’t, etc. We only when on the tour…did not schedule an interview. We mostly did them after school and on Saturdays. She ended up not applying to any of these schools, but she got an excellent overview of what’s out there.</p>

<p>If you live near any college or university, it’s a good idea to spend some time on campus, even if your child is not serious about the place.</p>

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<p>I think the best way to start the college process is to avoid the names. Decide if the kid wants to go to school in an urban, suburban or rural area. Also, decide if they want a small (say LAC), medium (3,000 to 7,000) or big school.</p>

<p>If you can reduce the choices to 1 or 2 of the 9 possible boxes you have made progress without getting into the inflammatory question of which school is best. Also, early tours are best if you are trying to decide type of school rather than just college X is in or out…less pressure.</p>

<p>The forums seem full of hs kids deciding whether school x or y is best in subject z. But, the college first years who are unhappy often have a ‘9 box’ problem (i.e. school is too big or small, too rural or the city is creepy) issue. Learn from others!</p>

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<p>There’s something called Counselor-o-matic on Princeton Review. I wouldn’t recommend it as your only source, but your son can go on there and answer a bunch of questions about himself and it will spit out a bunch of suggestions. It will get him thinking about the considerations involved, and he’ll learn about “safety, match, and reach.” If you don’t have all the data (SAT scores, final GPA), estimate or guess.</p>

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<p>The reason I recommend guides like Fiske or Insider’s is that they give a lot of info the college websites do not, such as what the partying scene is like, preppy or not, How studious the students tend to be. I’ve seen posts on CC about, “I had no idea there would be so much drinking on this campus.” To a certain extent, there is some everywhere, but if you read these types of guides, you’ll get a much better picture about how prevalent and how easy/difficult it is to find a non-drinking crowd. Just one example.</p>

<p>If your son is like mine, he might find he learns a lot about himself during this process; trite, but true. And fun to watch and participate in, if he’ll let you!</p>

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<p>Binx’s advice is great. I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of going through a variety of search programs to identify potential schools, then having the student read up on them and research their web sites. An interesting book is the Yale “The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges” for another perspective - my S found it quite helpful in narrowing down options his junior year. It also got him thinking about what it was really like in college and how it related to his own interests. He really didn’t like making tons of decisions and was happy to get help in narrowing down options for his consideration. In fact, even though I kept encouraging him to come up with more ideas, he was content to rely on my initial research. I still don’t know if I did a really good job (his final six choices were all excellent and variable) or if he was just lazy!</p>

<p>We combined college visits with vacations starting sophomore year spring break and the next summer. Our S also participated in several on-campus summer programs during high school, which allowed him a week or two living in different types of colleges, from a small local private school to a state university. He was clearly headed toward a specific major - all of his activities and interests supported this - so we included that in the search to find schools strong in that major.</p>

<p>In the end he chose six schools and was accepted to four (the no’s were MIT and Stanford so not too bad!).</p>

<p>Also, although sophomore year is too early to narrow down choices, it is important to understand what kinds of courses (eg 4 years of math, fine arts, etc.) are required by different types of schools for entry so you don’t eliminate potential colleges. Our HS GC’s were very strong on this in advising students on courses throughout all four years so we were lucky.</p>

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<p>I guess I would follow Marite’s advice. If your son is great at math and now isn’t trying too hard, he is either bored or the Testosterone Ogre has visited your house. If it’s boredom, absolutely right now go the enrichment route, send him to CTY, etc. If it’s testosterone, well, batten down the hatches and wait for the wave to subside…</p>

<p>Either way, to help him develop a college list, well, how does he define his interests now? Does he spend a lot of time online? Watching TV? Does he play sports? Like to travel? Think Beyonce is to die for? Prefers avatars? In other words, what are the parameters of how he wants to build his identity as a young man? The college choice will follow. A great math kid could love Caltech, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, St. Olaf’s, UCB, or UIUC…But a kid who loves name brand sports won’t like St. Olaf so much. A kid who is really edgy may not be his happiest at Princeton…A kid who loves the big city is going to be thrilled at Harvard or UCB…etc.</p>

<p>I found the best way with my S was to suggest places while we were driving in the car. He would say either, “Mom”, in a tone of disgust, or “Yeah, maybe”. I just had to learn how to speak early teenage boy. He’s actually become much more verbal lately as he moves to the late teenage boy stage:).</p>

<p>Which is maybe another point to consider. From my personal experience, who he is today is only a gesture at who he will be in two years. Again, in my personal experience, boys grow a little later in life than boys, in every possible way…YMMV.</p>

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<p>We live overseas but Amazon delivers.</p>

<p>We ordered the new edition of Best 361 Colleges <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Best-Colleges-College-Admissions-Guides/dp/0375764836/sr=8-1/qid=1170786709/ref=sr_1_1/105-1382866-2459647?ie=UTF8&s=books[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Best-Colleges-College-Admissions-Guides/dp/0375764836/sr=8-1/qid=1170786709/ref=sr_1_1/105-1382866-2459647?ie=UTF8&s=books&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I have done this for a number of boys–sons and friends and young relatives–</p>

<p>I read through various descriptions of colleges aloud and asked the kids to tell me what doesn’t sound like them.</p>

<p>From that initial reading we found out they didn’t want.</p>

<p>I read through the section about overall Student Personality. I think this section is pure genius. It is written in slightly wry language that 17 year olds appreciate and understand. It is a spot-on a description in my opinion. Yes, there will be other types of students at the school but this guide gives you a good idea of the behavior of the majority of the students. </p>

<p>From that initial perusal the kids get a short list of schools and cities to visit and research. Some schools were knocked out when the kids looked at the course listings and didn’t see great classes they were dying to take.</p>

<p>On visits, we urged the kids to sit in on classes and have lunch with a current student. One tour guide and 40 anxious yuppie parents do not make a good impression of that fabled college ‘life’.</p>

<p>We also encourage the kids to read difficult texts and memorize 150 SAT words prior to the test. High CR scores are very valuable–especially for boys.</p>

<p>I agree with Alum. There is a pre-testosterone fog but whent he real juice kicks in at age 17 or so, you are likley to see a much higher drive, focus and ambition. The trick is not to let him get lost while he’s driving in that fog. marite has some good suggestions for the math-inclined.</p>

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<p>IM a junior currently(a student who was until recently was in the same posistion as ur kid)…casual visits r great…especially if its local or near where a place ur on vacation for another reason and u have some free time…this past summer when my family was in san fransisco…(i always wanted to go far awayy…but my parents want me nearby…but my dad relucatanly allowed me to look i live On Long Island in ny)for vacation we had a free morning b4 doing something and i walked around campus of Mills college(a all grls college in oakland 30 minutes from sf) and USF I really got the feel of the campuses there was even some students(summer sessions)…i fell in love with mills but USF was ok… It was no tours just walking around…walked allover mills even got a tshirt…and a pen its fun…do this at a few campuses then make plans to return if u like it the next summer or beginning of senior yr and take a tour recently i decided to stay on the east coast due to medical problems…but my parents r deciding me to go ne where on the east coast just nearby a airport…</p>